Wilco, ‘Sky Blue Sky’ With hints of Southern California folk-rock reminiscient of the Eagles, Wilco is back with its sixth studio album. I may be alone in this thinking, but I’m relieved to hear less ‘experimentation’ in this release. With the exception of a few songs, 2004’s A Ghost is Born was not for me. […]
Grant-Lee Phillips & More, Album Previews
Grant Lee Phillips “Soft Asylum (No Way Out)” Grant-Lee Phillips, Strangelet (Zoe/Rounder) Out with his fifth solo recording titled “Strangelet”, Grant-Lee Phillips looks to cosmic abnormalities to inspire a “record for strange times”. Check out the Grant-Lee Phillips’ MySpace profile for song previews. File under: Rock, Acoustic, Alternative. ALSO LOOK FOR: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, […]
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, The SXSW Encore
Here’s a short clip of the encore Grace Potter and Scott Tournet belted out as described on my SXSW Recap. I must have been standing just to the left of the cameraman. Great to see someone captured this. I can’t tell you how much better it sounded live. Also, note the glass of scotch Potter […]
Low Stars, On the Radar
Harmony, harmony, harmony. Apparently, its back in style and it sounds great. Witness foursome Low Stars with their debut album. I know what you are thinking… these guys are a CSN ripoff. You’d be right, but they don’t hide from this. In fact, they embrace it. “We wanted to make an authentic-sounding record that was […]
Happy Holidays
LA band Shurman offer up this original holiday gem, “Santa You Can Skip Me This Year.”
Tom’s Pick of the Week, Josh Ritter
The Animal Years has been highly anticipated for some time now. You’ll find this album reminiscent of the folkier side of Bruce Springsteen and more recently Ryan Adams but with better vocals, at least in my opinion. So far this year, this is the best Folk album I’ve listened to. A full album stream is […]
The Wood Brothers – Ways Not To Lose
The Wood Brothers released their first official album recently. Until now all that had been available were bootlegs of live shows that were only attainable through generous friends. Their new album is titled “Ways Not To Lose” and was released by Blue Note records, the same label that has claim over bassist Chris Wood’s other […]
Party Like It’s 1899
In the 200 years since Irish-Scots settlers crossed the broad Atlantic, their instruments, tunes and stories have dramatically affected the music of the Appalachian region, an antecedent of many of the rootsy styles we lovingly call “Twang.” Irish Folk and traditional Celtic music is a proud living tradition, rich in history, poetic, entertaining, and intensely […]
Notable Releases: March 7, 2006
Its a big week for releases and here are a few top picks… Centro-matic, Fort Recovery Will Johnson could be rock’s most prolific songwriter. He has consistently put out several albums each year under his own name and with the bands South San Gabriel and Centro-Matic. Its the last incarnation that is behind this new […]
Listen to KT Tunstall’s “Eye to the Telescope”
Check out up and coming folk pop star KT Tunstall’s full release “Eye to the Telescope” on ARTISTdirect.com. Its so refreshing to see someone new to the pop scene that carries some solid songwriting, outstanding acoustic guitar and bluesy vocals. For her, I’m going to start an early campaign for Best New Artist of 2006. […]